Bella is telling us when she's gone poop now, asking for a diaper change. Time to see if she's ready to potty train now.
She won't sit on the toilet and go (You will need to ask Katie the story on that one when you get a chance). Theory is she feels like she will fall in.
So I made this seat out of a 1/4 inch acrylic I had gotten it to use as a face for my router table. I guess it has other uses now.
I probably shouldn't mention that I dreamed up this design…
Laying out the plexiglass to trace the toilet to make the potty seat.
This is the only circle bit I have. It' doesn't work very well, but it got the job done and it only cost a couple of bucks.
The edges where sanded on my belt sander after I cut them. This leaves a smooth but tetured surface.
Gotta LOVE flame polishing acrylic sheeting.
Leaves the edge very smooth, clear, and no micro-cracks to start a big crack in the future.
Letting the inspector examine my workmanship. See the oblong shaped 'business end'?
This snaps on for easy cleaning. This is just a nylon strap with snaps on each end.
I was working on some of my hand forged Settlers of Catan pieces on my UNiMAT mini lathe tonight. I mainly wanted to flatten the bottom of the pieces so they would sit flat on the board. I also tried to machine the roof of one just to see if I could do it.
I will be machining all the bottoms it looks like. I think I will leave the roofs alone. More work than it's worth. It takes longer to machine the bottoms than to forge the pieces – never mind machining the roof!
A stack of rough forged game pieces. These are pretty bad.
Trying to use the 4 jaw chuck on the lathe to mill one of the game piece 'roof' faces.
Roof was machined flat.
More importantly, the base is machined flat. Now the piece can sit on the board.
The 4 jaw chuck allows me to grab this 4 sided piece and machine the bottom flat.
I think I like the blacksmithed roof building better that the machined roofed building.
Most people who know me know that I am pretty a-political. I am a live & let live type of person.
My theory is that politicians created all the good laws that needed creating years ago, and in order to stay relevant and appear to be working, now create really dumb laws. All so they can appear to be working and justify our voting for them again.
SOPA.
Basically it’s like taking somebody’s name out of the phone book because somebody made a BBB complaint against them. A really dumb idea, and trivial to work around.
Essentially, they are wanting to break the INTERNET in order to censor Americans without due process.
We have a process that deals with the problem they are trying to solve. It’s called Copyright litigation. It’s a poor process, slow, expensive, and difficult, but it’s a hell of a lot better than breaking the INTERNET!
I know from experience that it’s not often wise to come up with a technical ‘solution’ to a social management problem.
So, my act of defiance against this dumbness is to join the SOPA blackout.
I am not completely shutting down my site. That would be as dumb of an idea as SOPA is itself. So I am just using a splash screen and changed my template to a black template.
The machine is older than me, but appears to be a later model in this production run judging from the color. I have found one broken part, the capture nut to hold down the tooling block.
Now I need to get the rest of the tools needed to use this correctly and learn how to use it safely.
I think this will be a good complement to my blacksmithing as well as allowing me to make some custom parts for a wide variety of my other hobbies: aquaponics, woodworking, electronics, computer mods, and so on.
And of course, the idea of converting it into a CNC is in the back of my mind.
A friend gave me a UNiMAT mini lathe. He rescued it from the trash.
About to cut a bevel on the inside and cut down the outside so I can stack 2 different sizes and make a funnel out of PVC for my aquaponics bell siphon.
I tried the 'sharpen a pencil on a lathe' trick. I needed to use a different tool than what came with the lathe though.
I bit of a mess… PVC and wood shavings.
I want to hang this roll of craft paper under the table, so I am making spindles that fit inside and let it roll off.
